


Need To Know Basis

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Sharing a Bed, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 18:37:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: No matter the demands already placed on their time, a distress beacon cannot simply be ignored. Not even when you're due to start your sleep cycle after an already long, hard day.When Shepard returns, she worn out, exhausted, and wants to be next to only one person.





	Need To Know Basis

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing to go through, finish, and clean up old drabbles. Enjoy.

 

Thane woke slowly, feeling lethargic and confused as sleep slowly fell away. Something was off. There was an ache at the back of his head, a sure sign that he must have slept on his frills wrong, but more worrying than that was the heavy pressure on his chest. For a moment, he was afraid that it was his lungs, that the sense of weight was an illusion, a symptom of decreased oxygen absorption, until the weight shifted and he became aware of a tickling sensation at the crook of his neck. Opening his outer eyelids first, easing himself back into awareness, and then the inner, Thane found himself in the Life Support, on his pallet. The lights were dim though, a sure sign that he was off his regular sleeping schedule since they were programmed to raise around the time he himself did. The weight at his side sighed as he shifted, but it was no longer concerning as the memories of what lead to this had now returned with perfect clarity, even if the situation itself was incredible.

“I have manually overridden the lighting controls of the Life Support, since it seemed prudent to let both you and the Commander sleep past your regular waking cycle,” came EDI's voice over the intercom, pitched low and soft.

“Thank you,” Thane responded, voice just as quiet so as not to wake the person pressed to his side.

Commander Shepard, her arm and half her body flung over his chest, still twitched in response but didn't otherwise wake. Thane had heard from Garrus and Tali that Shepard, given the opportunity, could and would sleep like dead and she seemed content to live up to that reputation now. Not that she wouldn't have deserved it. Things had just been winding down the previous day, navigation had their target set and clear space, the CIC's secondary crew was already taking over their positions, and Shepard herself had been heading to the elevator to start her sleep cycle after a long day when the distress signal had come through. Jacob had noted how you couldn't seem to take two steps in this galaxy without _someone_ needing _something_ but the Commander was set on saving the galaxy, one compromised colony at a time if need be, and was already marching back to the star map, shouting orders to alter course. Soon she was boarding the shuttle – because of course she was, of course she couldn't simply leave this too someone else – with Grunt and Mordin, armour and weapons once again weighing them down, and had disappeared for the next several hours. They had returned only after Mordin had finished checking over the injured and Grunt had rooted out and gleefully destroyed the last of the mercenaries that had thought to take advantage of an agricultural community.

Thane should have gone to sleep himself during this mission, he knew that, but he had found himself becoming more and more disquieted during dangerous missions when Shepard went planetside and he was left aboard the Normandy. It was irrational and he knew it. He was never worried for Shepard when they fought side by side, far from it, and he was more than aware that Shepard could handle whatever came at her. And yet the thought of hearing of Shepard going down, hundreds of kilometers away, through the crackling comms or EDI's sterile voice was... unsettling. It dredged up unbidden memories of the day he'd received the news of Irikah, and it left him feeling restless. So while Shepard went down to the colony, he had stayed in the Life Support, needlessly busy in maintaining his armour and weapons until at last the rumble of the shuttle docking back on the ship could be heard.

He waited a moment, listened. Only quiet movement, from the floor above. No yelling, no warnings, no fuss. He could safely assume that everyone has returned safely, and so for the first time since Shepard began suiting up Thane felt himself relax and the tiredness flood in now that anxiety was no longer holding it back. Filled with a relief he hadn't yet wanted to examine too closely, Thane had gotten up, leaving a dissembled sniper spread out over his desk, and had changed into sleepwear at last. He'd been on his pallet, choosing a calming memory to watch as he fell asleep, when the Life Support door had slid open.

“Oh, shit, were you asleep? Sorry, I lost track of what the on-board time was. I'll just–”

Thane had sat up before Shepard could double back out of the room. “No, no, it is quite alright, siha. I haven't gone to bed yet. Please, will you join me?”

Shepard had hesitated for a moment, her strange, vibrant, human eyes narrowed at him in a way he had learnt indicated suspicion or analysis. Likely trying to decide if he was lying for her benefit or not, and whether she should leave regardless. To waylay concern, Thane had sat up on his pallet, crossing his legs and indicating that Shepard should sit with him. He wasn't entirely sure if he shouldn't have gotten up and taken a seat at the desk, wasn't sure what human etiquette said about being in another's sleeping space, but he was tired, the desk was a mess, and he and Shepard had been... something, to one another for some time now. After only an uncertain second more, Shepard had given in and come to settle on the bed next to Thane, leaning heavily against the wall.

“Would you not rather go to bed though, siha? You look exhausted,” he had said gently, because she did. Humans, with their soft, porous skin, sweated and after spending hours in a combat suit it clung to her still, making her hair stick up in wild disarray and her face look even more pallid and drawn. Shadows had been etched around her eyes, and her posture looked both too stiff and too near collapsing – even someone not adapt at reading human body language could have seen that she was spent.

“Believe me, I would love to,” Shepard had said, drawing a hand down her face. “Still drowning in adrenaline though. I'd just end up wearing a hole in the floor of my cabin. Thought if you were still up I might come down here to talk a bit and unwind.”

The fact that this was the first place she had thought to go, when anyone of her crew would happily accommodate her, made a bubble of warmth swell in his chest and a smile creep onto his face.

“I won't stay long. Fuck, I need a bath and I need to go to bed but... a few minutes?”

“Of course, siha. I would be honoured.”

And so he and Shepard had stayed up, discussing some little aspects of the mission she had just finished – she had told him, with the sort of humour you only developed when you dealt in death, about one turian merc who had had enough balls and few enough brain cells to try to charge Grunt – and of light things, jokes about the crew, memories of other times. Thane could recall, though he himself had been fading at the time, scarcely able to keep his eyes open, how after several long moment in which neither of them had said anything, Shepard had finally slumped to the side, her head falling heavily on his shoulder, shocking him awake once more. Somehow he hadn't actually expected her to fall asleep. It was a silly thing, because everyone knew that Shepard slept the same as anyone else, knew about her grumbling after she'd just woken up, and about her coffee habit, but somehow seeing her defenses completely stripped had come as a surprise. For a moment, he had wondered if he should wake her but hadn't been able to bring himself to do so, and then had wondered if he should try to carry her to her cabin but Shepard was a solid woman, heavy with muscle and Thane was exhausted. It would not win him any favours if he dropped her in the elevator. Nor, he suspected, if another living person saw him carrying Shepard and let her know it. So instead he'd helped Shepard lie down against the pallet before he too settled beside her and finally, _finally_ fell asleep.

While Thane's bed in Life Support was not particularly large neither of them was exactly a krogan and they had fit well enough, with each curled up in their own space. It should be noted that at the time they had very much not been touching, besides for where Shepard's back pressed against his side as she curled up, no facial frills to keep her from sleeping on her side.

Now, however, things had clearly changed. Shepard, apparently, was no more capable of staying still in her sleep than she was in her waking hours. Still, if the data streaming to his omni-tool was correct they still had a while to go before they reached their intended destination and barring any new emergencies neither of them technically had anywhere to be. So he settled back against the pillow, feeling warm and comfortably under Shepard's weight, and relaxed.

-

It was some time later before Shepard stirred again in earnest. It started as just a flinch, followed by her pressing herself more solidly against his side, and then finally she groaned, as if personally offended with the world and the state of consciousness she was forced to hold in it.

“Why'sit so fuckin' cold?” she grumbled to no one specifically.

“You threw the covers off yourself, siha,” Thane said. In the process of wrapping herself around him she'd managed to get the blankets wedged between her chest and his side, meaning most of her body and rumpled uniform was exposed to the room.

“Th'fuck?” Shepard peeled herself off Thane – at least as much as she could without needing to completely rearrange herself – and stared blearily up at him. “This isn't my cabin.”

“No,” he agreed, amused. “Who did you think you were holding onto?”

Shepard's head thumped back down against his shoulder. “Not thinking, too fuckin' early. What happened?”

“You fell asleep here last night,” he said, in that moment reminding himself that other species didn't have the memories of drell. The last thing he would want is for Shepard to be genuinely distressed in waking up somewhere she didn't remember falling asleep. Though she mostly seemed confused rather than upset or angry. “You stopped to help a farming colony and when you got back you came to talk with me. And then you fell asleep.”

“Oh god,” Shepard groaned. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's perfectly alright, siha.”

“Still, I try to make a point of not invading people's beds without being invited. Fuck. You don't have coffee, do you?”

“I recall that I did, in fact, invite you, Commander. And I'm afraid I don't. Sergeant Gardner probably does.”

“Is breakfast being served yet?”

“Breakfast was served several hours ago, Commander,” came EDI's voice, making Shepard jerk upright.

“ _Hours_? How long did you let me sleep? Why didn't my alarm go off?” she demanded, rounding on Thane mostly because it was incredibly difficult to glower at an AI that made up the entirety of a ship.

“You returned from your mission quite a few hours after your sleeping cycle should have started, Commander,” said EDI as Thane held his hands up defensively. “I disabled your alarms and ensured you would be able to get an appropriate compensation.”

“Oh fuck me,” Shepard grumbled, pushing herself upright and swinging her legs off the palette.

Her hair stood up wildly from sleep and Thane watched with quiet fascination as she dragged her hands through it, trying to make it lie flat. Humans were one of the only sapient species in Citadel space that had hair-covered bodies and it was hard not to be awed by the way it moved at the slightest provocation or so willingly took new shape. And it was soft, so soft as Thane had come to realize with it curling against his neck last night as Shepard slept. Thane sat up next to her and ran his hand down a section that stuck up at the back, letting the individual strands glide against his fingers. Shepard gave him a grateful if rueful smile.

“This was nice,” he told her. “I appreciated being able to wake up to you.”

“What, even with me drooling on your shoulder?” asked Shepard, snorting.

“Even then.”

“I don't mean to interrupt, Commander, but Officer Vakarian did request that when you have 'finished snuggling while the rest of us are doing real work' that you might contact him in the forward battery,” intoned EDI.

Shepard groaned. “If I hear one more word about his cali- wait.” Thane watched Shepard's mouth move silently, as if working out a difficult problem while her still sleepy mind caught up with everything. “Oh fuck, please tell me he didn't see me in here.”

“He... did come by, to see if I had seen you,” said Thane.

“Oh my god,” moaned Shepard, letting her head fall into her hands. “I'm never going to hear the end of this. Please tell me no one else knows.”

“Word may have gotten to Mr Moreau,” said EDI.

“Which means half the ship knows. Fuck. Well, time for the walk of shame and a shower then, I guess.”

“My understanding is that a 'walk of shame' normally requires sex be involved,” Thane pointed out.

“Yeah, somehow I have a feeling this will somehow be worse. Do I look like a cuddly person, Thane?”

“You do,” he said, memory of her sleeping face against his shoulder vivid in the forefront of his mind.

Shepard stopped, gaped, and then went red. If there was any human physiological response Thane loved, it was their tendency towards blushing. He grinned back at her, lifting his hand to let it trail once more down the back of her head; she softened immediately under his touch.

“Yeah, well, that intel is on a need to know basis, no need to go spreading it around,” she allowed. “And thanks for last night. I would like to do it again. ...Maybe when I'm not dead on my feet and can remember more about it. And won't need to hear about it secondhand through Joker.”

“I'd like that, siha.”


End file.
